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Traveling across the American Southwest always seems to evoke feelings of nostalgia. It’s hard not to think of cowboys riding along the desert terrain or a family road trip with the car windows lowered and just stretches of highway ahead.
The Wigam Motel in Holbrook, Arizona prides itself on celebrating the motel traditions that gained popularity in the 1950s––a clean, safe and affordable roadside accommodation. The hotel also celebrates American southwestern culture with private accommodations fashioned after the teepees of the Plains Indians. The original developers thought that “wigwam motel” had a better ring to it than “teepee motel” and the name just stuck.
Chester E. Lewis first opened the motel in 1950 and his family has run it ever since.
There are 15 private “wigwams” at this motel. There’s also a museum and two mini-wigwams originally used as restrooms for a former Texaco station. It’s clear that the Wigwam Motel truly embraces many of the iconic associations of the American Southwest: road trips, exploration and the aesthetic virtues and functionality of the teepees of the Plans Indians.
